The Duke Threesome

While I applaud that our justice system finally worked and those three young men were released from their ordeal. I have to be honest; I have mixed feelings for a number of reasons. While these young men were not guilty of what they were charged, they are by no means “innocent” and to see them paraded around like some exonerated recently released from 20 years for a crime they didn’t commit naïve school boys is a little much for my palette.

One of the main reasons for my mixed feelings is that as most Black people know from experience there have been a lot of Black men sent to the penitentiary in a similar fashion and without the services of high price lawyers remain there. It seems that the scales of justice are once again kept in balance not by just innocence, but also by the weight of gold. Am I saying that I wanted those boys to go to penitentiary? No of course not. It would just be nice to believe that someday we could provide that type of justice for all Americans.

Another of my concerns is the backlash that will come back to their accuser, who is obviously an unstable woman. How anyone that talked to this woman could not have known that she had some major issues is beyond me. I know I may be a little cynical, but I have never bought into the “stripping” my way through law school scenario. I have known a lot of college girls that have made it through without resorting to that. Also, if you didn’t want to get naked in front of a bunch of men no one could pay you enough to do it. This woman is obviously in need of some help and not jail time.

The one deserving of jail time in my opinion is the DA and his investigators. It was their job to sort through the contradictions and make sure that justice was served. Now maybe people will realize that there are some DA’s that allow blind ambition to color their judgment and maybe we won’t be so quick to condemn the accused. Until something like this happens to “fine, upstanding” young men it goes unnoticed and unreported. Mr. Nifong is worthy of disbarment and jail time for allowing this tragedy to continue just to influence an election. This type of behavior is unconscionable and deserving of more than a slap on the wrist. This man deliberately used the power of his office to slander and defame these men. He allowed them to be judged guilty by public opinion based upon his inflammatory statements. There were many times in this process when he could have ended this “snipe hunt” and didn’t. It is one thing to not know, it is quite another to know and proceed anyway.

And finally; I have concern for us as a society that once again we have been too eager to judge and believe the worst. Maybe it is a reflex action for all the times we should have believed and done something and didn’t. I don’t know. But I know that we have to do better. What happened to these young men was despicable, but let us not forget that there are others for whom this type of justice is a way of life. If there were one lesson that we take from this ordeal, I would hope that it would be for all of us to be slower to judge. Now that we have the 24 hour news cycle everything is sensationalized and it is so easy to jump to conclusions, but we have a principle of justice here that says everyone is innocent until proven guilty. That guilt is proven not by the news media, but by a jury of our peers with all the relevant facts. Hooray for justice, lets share it with all Americans.